Indeed, Jesus is our Father's answer to our Hosanna.
Lent exists because we are forgetful creatures. We forget how hungry we really are.
The Pharisee valued fasting and giving tithes, but could not find value in his fellow sinner.

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I don’t know if you’re like me or not, but ideas can kick around in my head in a big jumble for awhile and then, all of a sudden, something random makes all of the pieces come together.
“The lack of assurance of one’s standing before God causes a person to do anything to make things right in a vain attempt to gain eternal certitude. ”
No matter how loving we are, we don’t get bonus points with the Almighty for imitating Jesus. We love each other because we recognize that “this is one for whom Jesus died.
To be sure, the devil has an incredible arsenal of assaults with which he can waylay believers into ineptitude and ineffectiveness.
Why confess sin? Is it so we can get rewarded by God? A little extra grace or material good for our troubles, maybe.
It can be argued that this scene sets a pattern for Christian activity on the first day of the week from that time until the present.
When guilt becomes our totem, it dictates our idea of right and wrong and enslaves us to the fear of what happens when we open our eyes tomorrow morning.
Much like Jacob wrestling with God in the desert, we find our intellectual hips continuously put out of joint as we engage the culture around us.
When we think God is doing something for us here or there or everywhere, we are simply fixing labels and putting value on what we imagine God is doing for us.
The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” But the fool also says in his heart, “There are many gods.” And we, dear friends, are the fools.
The commonly accepted wisdom is that we feel guilt over what we’ve done and we experience shame over who we are. If guilt is the blemish on our face then shame is the cancer in our heart. It’s deeper, harder to dig out.
The reason the U.S. is blessed by God is that we are essentially a “good” nation. And this is the root of Bob’s problem (and that of all civil religion).